1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to a cassette holder assembly for a tape player for recording and/or reproducing information on a recording medium tape housed in a cassette casing. More specifically, the invention relates to a cassette holder assembly which is particularly adapted to those types of tape cassettes having a sliding shutter for opening and closing the lower side tape access opening, such as a digital audio tape (DAT) cassette.
2. Description of the Background Art
The U.S. Pat. No. 4,683,510, issued on Jul. 28, 1987 discloses one typical construction of a DAT cassette which has a sliding shutter which can be locked between an open position and a closed position. The sliding shutter is locked at the respective open and closed positions by means of a locking head integrally formed with a resiliently deformable locking arm or locking claw.
On the other hand, British Patent 2,173,170, issued on Dec. 16, 1987 discloses a DAT cassette which has a symmetric groove construction with a pair of grooves formed on the lower surface of the sliding shutter. A shutter locking claw projects into one of the grooves. Symmetric grooves are intended to provide stable shutter handling operation upon sliding the shutter between the closed position, for blocking access of the tape through the lower opening of the cassette casing, and the open position, for permitting access of the tape. Furthermore, the symmetric groove constructions on the lower side face of the shutter may enhance the appearance of the DAT cassette in comparison with single-groove constructions.
In general, tape cassette players are required to accurately position an associated tape cassette at a loading position. Therefore, various constructions of cassette positioning means are provided for cassette holders of tape cassette players, to accomplish the accurate positioning of the tape cassette. The cassette positioning means has to restrict movement of the tape cassette in a back and forth direction and a direction transverse thereto. Typically, the cassette holder is provided with a resilient member for depressing the tape cassette onto the bottom plate of the cassette holder, for preventing play motion of the cassette within the cassette holder. Also, the cassette holder may be provided with a projection for restricting movement of the tape cassette in a back and forth direction and guide members for restricting tape cassette movement in a transverse direction.
Such cassette positioning means necessarily increase the number of parts required for forming the cassette holder and thus makes the structure of the cassette holder complicated.